


Untitled Piece

by FebobeFic_Archivist



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 13:28:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29333082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FebobeFic_Archivist/pseuds/FebobeFic_Archivist
Kudos: 5





	Untitled Piece

FRODO

At first Frodo was too sick to do more than rest in bed and allow Aragorn and the other Big Folk to feed him warm liquids, strengthening soups and warm sweetened milk. Soon, too, there were soft-cooked eggs. . .and then honey-custard, soothing milk-toast, strained applesauce, proper foods by hobbit as well as human standards for someone so ill. But soon Frodo was well enough to eat and drink what he might wish. . .nevertheless, after he had had a particularly difficult afternoon, huddled in Gandalf's lap, sobbing, frightened and upset, all the emotions of the last year flooding him at once, Aragorn in hushed tones asked that everything possible be done to provide him with familiar foods from home. The other hobbits insisted upon seeing to this themselves, and so for supper Frodo had the famous Brandybuck mushroom soup and bits of tender, juicy-moist roast chicken, soft mashed potatoes made by Sam and Pippin's special strawberry jam-tarts. He was pleased, and ate with better appetite than he had had in days.

They never told him how many hours it had taken, or how much effort.

But all four hobbits felt loved.

****

SAM

Merry and Pippin didn't understand until the day they came home to find the kitchen tables and counter-tops covered with meticulously prepared dishes, Frodo's favourites: creamy mushroom soup, roast chicken, mashed potatoes, creamed mushrooms, honey-glazed carrots, sweet corn muffins, sticky gingerbread, warm applesauce, soothing milk-toast, hot chicken broth. . .and Sam, standing in the midst of it all, his shoulders shaking as he cut the crusts from miniature sandwiches.

"Couldn't do nothin' proper for him in - that place!" he gulped quickly when Merry touched him on the shoulder, swallowing against tears rising in brown eyes reddened with crying. "Not nothin' proper - "

Moving to crumble a couple of corn muffins into a bowl of milk, as Frodo liked it, he turned away, and fell silent.

****

PIPPIN

Pippin sat turning an apple over in his hands. . .fresher, brought in with stores that had been blocked by the troops besieging Minas Tirith. Yet for once he had hardly the heart for more than a bite - not after counting days, and reckoning, and thinking.

While I had bread and butter and milk and apples in Minas Tirith, even though it did not seem so much at the time, Frodo. . .Frodo and Sam. . .must have been down to the last of their lembas, broken pieces of bread and what filthy water they could find. . . . And I was complaining about my rations. . . .

Dropping the apple onto the table, he ran for the water-closet, and was promptly sick.

****

MERRY

Dreams haunted him - nightmares, rather - of that dark time, of the day when he and Eowyn had killed the Fell King. Hours had seemed to pass as days, and days as weeks. . .but when he had woken then, when Aragorn had called him from Shadow, he had been hungry, and comforted by familiar hands large and small, and Pippin had brought him his pipe and some supper. The thought had wrenched his heart then, as it did now. Food was doled out by order in Minas Tirith at that time, because of the siege, but those in the Houses of Healing - especially warriors of such honour as he seemed to be accorded, which still felt strange to him - were always given what they needed to recover, and fine food at that, arranged to tempt even failing appetites, much less those with healthy hobbit ones. Arranged neatly on the tray sent to him in Pippin's hands, he discovered a cup of warmed milk, a mug of hot chicken broth, a freshly sliced apple, and a dish of carefully prepared milk-toast.

They had been down to rationing food on the way to Rivendell, too. But what they had Frodo could scarcely swallow: he had been so weak after his injury from the poisoned blade that they had hardly been able to coax bread and dried fruit down him. His quick recovery in Rivendell had been due in part, in Merry's opinion, not only to whatever care had healed his shoulder, but to the regular delivery of proper invalid food to his room - warm honeyed milk and soothing broths that the elves coaxed down him even before he woke, somehow managing to get him to swallow with a gentle stroking of fingers against his throat and soft murmurings that seemed to calm him even in the worst of the pain.

But Merry had been powerless to help him. As had the others. And the memory haunted him still, sometimes, so that even in his dreams he wept, and when he woke, he would hurry to the kitchen. . .to prepare a warm drink, and a snack, and this he would take to share with his fragile, beloved elder cousin.


End file.
